Cerebral Palsy patient fights to cast his ballot
Nearly three million people in Texas alone have already been to the polls. One of those early voters in Dallas, Texas, Charlie Murphy, has cerebral palsy, and he had to put up a fight to have his vote count.
Channel 8's David Schechter reports.
Charlie Murphy has Cerebral Palsy and communicates through a code using facial movements.
Although it hasn't stopped him from attending college,
an election worker was concerned that Charlies did not have the mental capacity to vote.
"His mental capacity has nothing to do with his physical disability, " his mother said.
Charlies' mother says an election worker challenged her son saying to her:
"I'm not going to let you sign for him because I don't think that Charlie understands what is going on here today."
Charlie's mom eventually prevailed after showing that her son is able to communicate and convincing officials that she was not going to steal his vote.
"And they were also implying that I was committing some kind of voter fraud" she continued.
Dallas County Election supervisor Bruce Sherbert says the episode was out of bounds.
"But if you need assistance, the law provides that you can have assistance by someone you bring with you or by one of the workers working at that location if you ask them to give you assistance."
It was a negative experience for the Murphys but Charlie and his dad always tend to see things in a positive light.
"Maybe Charlie needs to go in there and train them, " his father quipped. "It probably wouldn't hurt, couldn't hurt."
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